Malinche
In the year ‘Ce Acatl’, one reed, the god Quetzalcoatl will come back from the sea. Quetzalcoatl bears the symbol of the feathered serpent. He has a beard and cornsilk hair. He is the good god. The god of creation: of death and renewal. Creator of agriculture, education, poetry and crafts. The High Lord of the Aztecs, Moctezuma, shall abandon his throne and give it to him.
There will be a new era: a time of peace.
In that year; Easter 1519, the Spaniards approach the coast of Veracruz, with their ships, their beards, their blonde hair, and, feathers on their helmets.

The mountains of Oaxaca became the refuge of pre-Columbian civilizations that were never fully conquered. La historia de la resistencia permitio a esta cultura sobrevivir y rechazar la mentalidad colonizadora.
Now, Oaxaca is a city under siege, but strangely so. In Oaxaca’s occupied town center, tourists browse through hand-woven skirts, wool blankets and painted wooden turtles as they walk amidst the tents and improvised kitchens of the city’s rebels. Graffiti on the old adobe walls reads: “The movement has no leaders; it is from the grassroots!” “El movemiento no tiene lideres, es del pueblo!”
Mamá dónde estas?
You must go Juana. It is too dangerous here. If you stay here you will die. I will miss you so much, but still, I’ll be happier to be able to hear you on the phone though I cannot see you I’ll know that you are alive.
I left. When I was here I heard that my mother was very sick. I was afraid she was going to die and I wrote this poem for her.
Con grito desgarrante y extremecedor
Te llamo y te busco can amor y dolor
Maaa, Maaa, dónde estas me hace falta tu calor
Quiero verte una vez más primor
De solo pensar de no verte me dá pavor
Me miro y me escucho egoísta mi amor
Per NO me dejes sola mamá, por favor
Mi vida sin tí mama no tiene valor
Mama la distancia para mí es castigador
Cruel justiciero y vengador
Con el transcurrir del tiempo me siento peor
Día a día me reprocho mi error
Recuerdas mama, todo era prometedor
La esperanza y la solución la plasemé de un color
Y lo pinté de rosa ese fué mi error
Mama a tu lado se acaba todo mi sufrir y mi temor.

Niño: “Juany porque tu estas llorando?”
Juana: “Me voy.”
Niño: “No, no te vayas Juany. Porque tu te vas? Juany necesitas mas dinero?
Esperame por favor voy por mi chochito, toma todo mis, ahorros es para ti.”
Juana: “No puedo me tengo que ir estoy enferma. Te quiero mucho. Lo siento hijo.
I have worked for 3 years and 3 months now, 15 hours a day and get paid $250 a month. I had to stay: I wanted to earn money for my son, my family, my cousin who was sick. But is is not the money niño. I am locked inside and I cannot go near the windows because there is an alarm system in the house. It is like a prison here.
I am tired. I am depressed. I have to leave.
I know that there are other women who suffer the same way, women who work as modern slaves and who don’t know how to get out. I have to go. I have to stand up for all of us!
Lo siento hijo, pero te tengo que dejar mi amor, te prometo venir a verte te, lo prometo.”
Lo cual no pude cumplir porque no me lo permitio la mama del niño.
Niño: “No, quiero a mi mama, yo te quiero a ti porque tu eres como mi mama” — el llora desesperadamente.
La madre del niño entonces le grita al niño le dice: “Vete a tu cuarto! Ella no es de
la familia, no es nada tuyo, tan solo es una babystter.”
Entonces la mama del niño se dirige con gritos con mi y le dice: “Vete bye, bye. Go,Go!!!”
Juana: esta mujer es de Corazon de piedra. No le importo el dolor de su niño ni aprecio mi trabajo puse todo mi corazon y amor pues lo miraba como mi niño se rompio. Mi Corazon duele mucho. La separacion me acorde de mi hijo y llore muchisimo y sali susrrando.
“Adios mi niño”.
And I went, when I looked back over my shoulder I saw his little face behind the window, and the tears rolling over his cheeks. I felt like I was leaving my own little boy behind once again.
Llorona
No es extraño que las olas, Llorona The waves bring in pearls, Llorona
Traigan perlas a millares It’s strange they don’t bring more
Si a las orillas del mar, Llorona for I saw you at dusk, Llorona
Te vi lloroar la otra tarde. Weeping at the edge of the shore.
Thousands of indigenous people migrate from Oaxaca’s hillside villages to the United States every year. Miles de indigenas emigran de las villas de Oaxaca a los Estados Unidos todos los años.
La falta de oportunidades economicas en las villas de Oaxaca es el resultado de la politica economica Mejicana. For more than two decades, under pressure from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and conditions placed on U.S. bank loans and bailouts, the government has encouraged foreign investment, while cutting expenditures intended to raise rural incomes.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decided that undocumented immigrant workers are not eligible for back pay under the National Labor Relations Act. La Suprema Corte de Justicia decidio que los imigrantes ilegales no son elegibles para ser pagados bajo el acto de relaciones y trabajo. Muchos empleadores han usado esta reglamentacion como excusa para negarles a los trabajadores sus derechos.
Malinche:
Inside me a pair of eyes is observing everyone and everything, and nerves of the earth come to life in me and speak too:
‘These men of Spain know too little.
You must not pray directly for what you want.
You must pray that everything is the way it should be between what is inside you and what is outside you. Then you will have good harvests and good children.’
How can these men be Gods?
How can they be bringing my land good?
Tonight the sunset is blood on a black wall.
Mi vida y asi fue como conosi a un hombre que lleno el vacio que abia en mi Corazon. Y despues de eso salio me hijo Mario y yo pense que todo habia terminando. Pero no resulta que no y despues vuelve otra ves los problemas. El empiesa a celarme. Y a maltratarme fisica y moralmente. Hasta que me llego a los golpes. Despues de eso salgo embarazada sin saber. Y mi hijo Mario vuelbe a caer a la carsel. Y yo me dejo de este senior. Como arrimada con mi hijo Francisco.
LA Times, May 27, 2008
In a small community room behind Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights on a recent Friday, Matilde, 38, sat waiting to put her plan in writing. She asked that her last name not be published because she is an illegal immigrant. Her 5-year-old son, in a gray Spider-Man sweat shirt, fiddled with a pair of sunglasses next to her.
Organizer Rita Chairez called them into her office and showed Matilde a form letter. Le pide a los padres que nombren un custodio temporal para sus hijos en caso de que ellos sean arrestados en una redada. It asks parents to name a temporary guardian for their children in case they are arrested in a raid, she said. Parents should give a copy to their children’s school, keep one at home and leave another with the designated guardian. Chairez compared it to having a will.
“En caso de emergencia, cedo la custodia temporal de mis hijos a?” She paused “Who are you giving custody to?”
“Mi hermana,” “My sister” Matilde said.
After she answered all the questions on the form, Matilde returned to the community room and waited to sign it in front of a notary. She said she has been in the U.S. for 15 years. Sus dos hijos han nacido aqui y estan “adaptados a la vida en los Estado Unidos.”
Matilde had never talked about the possibility of deportation with her children but she would share the plan with her 11-year-old daughter later that day, she said.
“Si algo ocurre, los hijos estaran indefinidamente con una tia que es legal en el pais”, she said.
“If one day I don’t come back home, I don’t want them to get scared,” Matilde said.
Walter, who attended the workshop near USC, hasn’t decided what to do with his children. But he said he would start preparing, even if it’s just by saving “De a poco por si el momento llega. Quizas, $10, $15, $20 por cada cheque del sueldo.”
Canciõn Mixteca
Que legos estoy del suelo
Donde he nacido
imenso nostalgia
Invade mi pensamiento
Al verme tan sola
Y triste cual aloja el viento
Quisiera llorar
Quisiera morir
De sentimiento
Oh! Tierra del sol! Suspiro por verte
Ahora que lejos. Yo vivo sin luz y amor
Y al verme tan sola
Y triste cual aloja el viento
Quisiera llorar
Quisiera morir
De sentimiento
Oh! Tierra del sol! Suspiro por verte
Ahora que lejos. Yo vivo sin luz y amor
Y al verme tan sola
Y triste cual aloja el viento
Quisiera llorar
Quisiera morir
De sentimiento

after the performance we pass on the callado (the shepard’s stick)